


Languish

by nyagosstar



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyagosstar/pseuds/nyagosstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Languish

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the somewhat gray area after the end of the 2003 series and Conqueror of Shamballa.

The worst part, he supposed, beyond having to live in a strange place, not having alchemy and having his last connection to his previous life be his bastard of a father, was that he had no idea what happened on the other side of the Gate. 

Toward the end of things, when the cost of the Stone became clear, Ed had pretty much resigned himself to not making it out alive. He would have liked to have his and Al’s bodies back, and for them to go about their lives. It would have been nice to pick up where they were interrupted, but Ed saw the likelihood of that dwindle the deeper into the secrets they descended.

Dante might have tried to tell him that equivalent exchange was a lie, but as far as alchemy was concerned, it was truth. They couldn’t get Al’s body back, even with the Stone, without some big ass sacrifice. It wasn’t fair, and as much as he resigned himself to it, he didn’t actually want to die. He wanted to know what it would be like to have a life that wasn’t ruled by the military, to have pursuits that weren’t overshadowed by a driving need to set things right. It would have been nice to be a kid for a little while.

But Al had lost far more than Ed. It was Ed’s duty and his privilege to make it right. Al might say that he’d been just as culpable in the act, but Ed was the elder, he was the more persuasive and it had been his idea in the first place. It sucked that Al would be left alone, but he trusted in Winry and Pinako to take care of Al as family.

As the last fucking joke, though, here on the other side of the Gate, Ed had no idea what had happened. He had no way of knowing if his sacrifice had even worked. He hoped with every fiber of his being that Al was alive, living in his perfect body and happy, but Ed couldn’t know for sure. After all the years, the suffering and the heartache they shared, Ed liked to think that he would know if Al were dead, that his blood and his bones would tell him. But that wasn’t science, it wasn’t alchemy and those were the only two things he believed in.

In the time he didn’t spend worrying about Al and trying to find a way to get himself back home without fucking things up again, Ed wondered how things had gone for Mustang. The man had more luck than anyone Ed knew and he couldn’t imagine that Mustang hadn’t succeeded. He tried to imagine what Amestris would be like under Mustang’s rule, but usually ended up laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. 

It was strange, he thought, that he missed Mustang at all, when he’d spent so much time resenting him. The Colonel had gone out of his way to help them on many occasions, but it had always been for his own benefit. At least when he’d been using them, Mustang had never tried to pretend it was for their own good. They used each other and it made him a little, just a little, better than the rest of the bastards.

Sometimes, at night when he was trying to sleep and his mind just wouldn’t shut down, Ed thought about home and how much he wanted to be there. He wanted to go home so badly it seemed just him wishing it would make it happen. A simple clap of his hands, the flow of alchemy through is body and he’d be home. But alchemy didn’t work here. He was tired of Germany, he was tired of his father—who was trying too hard to make up for lost ground and broken promises—and he was tired of wishing. 

Even the people he found here who were like soft echoes of the ones from home didn’t help. The familiar face with the wrong name and different memories just made him more aware of his exile. The Hughes here, as good as it was to see him alive, was an idiot. The man had nothing of the ridiculousness and deadly accuracy that made Hughes the amazing man he’d been. Ed wasn’t sure if it was the lack of Gracia and Mustang in his life that made such a difference, or if it was Germany itself that did it, but seeing him, living and breathing was almost worse.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

Ed rolled his eyes. That was Hohenheim these days, always wanting to know what he was thinking, what he remembered, what he was _feeling_. “It’s been a long day.”

“Do you still think rockets are the best approach?”

Ed shrugged. He didn’t, not really. The Gate wasn’t something he thought he could get back to by physical means, but it kept his mind engaged and it kept him busy and it kept him from going insane. “It’s the only thing I can think of.” 

“It’s not so bad here, you know.”

Hohenheim had been trying to convince him to accept this place as his new home, to stop trying quite so hard to get back, to get him to believe that he might never go back. But for Ed, obsession was a way of life. He’d spent his formative years first learning everything he could about alchemy to bring his mother back, and then chasing after the Philosopher’s Stone to get their bodies back. If he wasn’t focusing all of his attention on some distant goal, Ed honestly didn’t know what to do with himself. So he studied, he adjusted to this new world as best he could and he planned. Because he’d been prepared to give up everything for Al, he’d readied himself for death and to end up here instead, in this purgatory of unknowing, was the cruelest joke and he couldn’t let it be the final word.


End file.
